Work Text:
*
Louis wanted nothing.
Death and darkness hardly seemed worth his fear.
He shrouded himself in the grief of losing a wife and newborn, even if it had been half a year. It felt like wearing a knotted loop of linens to his neck. Louis thought of it. He thought of it so often to rid of his mortal coil and join them. Alas, he did not.
Leaving behind what was known to him all of his twenty-four years of existence, Louis sought out what was far and unknown.
Paris, with all of its mysteries, welcomed him.
A scent of perfume and rot clung to the fog. Louis half-longed for the warm, wet summer on his estate, compared to what he recognized as a deep and penetrating chill while lingering in empty streets. The wine did little to spare him.
He stumbled drunkenly into another man wearing a long, dark-velvet cloak, then was accosted against a wall.
That is what happened.
That is what Louis remembers when there's little else, trapped in a dungeon.
Rats creep along.
There's no chamber-pot. He demands to be freed. Louis's hands beat themselves until aching on steel bars.
Disembodied voices sound, low and lithe.
"Should we not wait…"
"He is young…"
"Armand would not approve of this…"
Armand…
Louis allows the name, manifesting reverence and power, to settle within his considerations. The shadows speaking, they move so quickly that Louis's eyes cannot hope to pinpoint them. He wonders if it's drinking. His head spins. His mouth tastes bile.
Organ pipes. Louis hears them, along with many, many footsteps, as he's pulled forcefully out and above ground.
It appears to be men and women surrounding him, ushering him, with pale countenances and pale eyes.
They say not a word.
He glimpses a wall-hanging scrolled in crimson THÉÂTRE DES VAMPIRES and thinks them mad.
Vampires do not exist.
Louis has begun to doubt that life beyond living exists.
They fling him onto a cart, unwashed and shivering and naked, rolling him out.
"What a creature this is!" proclaims one of the men. He gestures to Louis dumped onto the stage's floor. Every bit of it feels like ice. "Poorly stationed! A meager afterthought of his God! Doomed to suffer!" Louis groans weakly, rising to his feet.
A thin-faced woman, wearing an identical black hood as the others, grasps Louis's arm. She's stronger than him.
"Must he be sacrificed to cleanse the world of his pathetic attendance? Does his guilt weigh him down?" Louis stares sharply at the man with a dark brow and a cruel, long grin. "A widower among us immortal… perhaps it would be a mercy killing at best…"
"You know nothing," Louis mumbles.
A hand slaps him across the face, not quick but harsh nonetheless, bruising his jaw.
"Do you know what it means to be loved by death?"
"Love is death, and you know nothing," Louis manages to get out, before another slap lands. Blood fills his mouth. His neck throbs.
More hands.
Louis thrashes against them, grunting, hearing a snarl and feeling a sharp pinch of teeth on his wrist.
And so suddenly, it vanishes.
He lurches out of the theatre trope's hold, looking another man approaching in crimson silk.
Even the restless audience stills.
Armand…
Louis blinks woozily, swaying on his feet, but no less defiant. He meets those gold-pale eyes. Armand, if it is he, reaches out to stroke the backs of his fingers and nails down Louis's bruised jaw. "No pain…" he repeats, his voice soothingly soft, "No pain…"
A tingle of faint pleasure roils within Louis, hardening him.
He swoons into Armand's uncloaked arms.
*
"Is this a dream…?"
Louis glances to the canopy draped around the fresh bedding. He slowly eases himself upright. In the taperlight, Louis watches Armand fold his hands together. He's no longer in crimson, but a similiar white, loosened tunic as Louis wears.
"What is it you spoke of?" Armand murmurs, and Louis supposes the slightest intrigue warrants his focus. "Love… is death."
"One becomes the other. We are consumed. We are lost."
A deep rumble of laughter. "And yet, you yourself have been found… by myself and my Children…"
"I thought I was dreaming." Louis touches over his jaw, finding it numbed. There's little blue veins in Armand's pale, handsome expression. He's somehow closer than before. "Men and women who called themselves vampires… it is absurdity, is it not?"
"They wished to drain you of your blood," Armand calmly informs him. "I stopped them."
Louis's heart pounds. Armand's gold eyes brighten further.
"Why?"
He's come to understand that those existing within the Théâtre des Vampires are dangerous. Armand, their leader, is dangerous. He examines Louis in silence before Armand's large, cold fingers touch his flushed cheek. "You are weary, cher…"
Instead of rejecting him, Louis covers Armand's fingers with his, shutting his eyes.
"I thought I was dreaming you when I felt you… but you are here…"
He hesitates, reclining onto the mound of feathered pillows.
"Why did you stop them?" Louis breathes, now displeased. When there's no answer, he scoffs. "Did you want me for yourself?"
Armand's nose brushes his. He's near enough to inhale, and Louis arches himself a little on the pillows.
"Is this what you desire, Louis de Pointe de Lac?" Armand questions.
"I desire nothing."
"Then it is what you'll receive." Louis feels those ice-cold fingers lightly drag up his sleeve, exposing Louis's wrist. "A gift much darker than you can imagine," Armand says as if cautioning him, his eyebrows raised. His pale lips savor Louis's hot flesh.
Monstrous…
Louis frees himself, impatiently lowering Armand's hand to his clothed cock. He rolls his hips, feeling that strong and firm grip. Armand's thumb drags down. The earlier hardness returns to Louis, pulsating and pleasurable. He moans raggedly.
Armand's mouth smirks over him.
He presses a dutiful kiss or two onto Louis's chin, making a path towards the bump of his neck.
What feels like teeth—vampire, a real vampire—pierces into Louis.
Louis gasps loudly for air, writhing and clutching an arm shakily around Armand's head. Every thought flees. Every sensation magnifies beyond what a human is capable of understanding. Louis feels an orgasmic release in his body, fleeing him as well.
Armand cuts the tip of his own tongue with his fangs.
Blood oozes dark on his pale, lovely lips.
He kisses Louis.
Louis shudders, allowing Armand to cradle him into that death and darkness.
Receiving the nothingness Louis so believes in.
*